Ramblings of a maverick

Dec 16, 2018 After the one-sided Bronze medal match that brought a sense of relief to one and all when the final whistle was blown, the stadium was packed to the rafters with the spectators overflowing onto the aisles, steps and pathways. And it was not without reason. The World Cup Hockey 2018 final promised a methodical technical hockey battle between the three-time Champions, Netherlands and first-time finalist, Belgium. The Netherlands were the first on the pitch with a purposeful practice session, well ahead of the Red Lions who followed a few minutes later. Given that the Netherlands came out of a tiring but exhilarating semi final that was resolved via the sudden death, I suspect that they wanted to swipe the highs of the previous night and start with a fresh page. The Red Lions were used to many a final and stacked quite a bit of 'silver'ware. Meanwhile, the crowd snapped up glimpses of their Cricketing hero, Sachin Tendulkar in th...

    Less than 18 hours prior, the Australian team gave it all on the pitch only to wind up second best on the night in a pulsating & non-stop action packed semi-final game against Netherlands that would have drained out any team, physically and perhaps mentally as well. However, if you were at the stadium around 3.30 pm on Sunday, Dec 16th, you would be excused if you thought it was the backup  Australian team that showed up. A lot of friendly banter, hand locks , shoulder bumps and even sending in a plastic rugby ball into the stands for light hearted exchange showed no signs of any carry over effects from the previous night. Boy, was the Australian team relaxed with the medal on the line ? They absolutely were not visibly stressed and showed up on the pitch to just enjoy and play hockey, with all seriousness but without the tension.  I think this showed for the next 84 minutes of the game that they were clinical but mentally relaxed and that saw them school E...

         Saturday, Dec 15 is going to be etched in the permanent memory of die-hard Hockey  enthusiasts. We were amongst the fortunate ones who got to watch the 2nd semi final involving the Netherlands and Australia played before a widely neutral but very passionate and knowledgeable 15,000 fans at the  Kalinga Hockey Stadium, Bhubaneswar.         While the game started off with Australia asking all the questions in the first few minutes of the exchanges, the Netherlands were made to wait. In previous games, I felt the Netherlands had just two ploys on hand - firstly, tackle and defend as if your life depended on it and secondly, spring to life with counter attacks. Somewhere, in the short journey between the Mayfair Lagoon where the team is based and the Kalinga Hockey Stadium, a third strategy was seemingly added for today's game; attack at will .         Hardly had all the countdowns and the noisy DJs set...

Over the past few days, I have experienced the loss of my dear grand Uncle, my wife's friend and my classmate's dad. From the time the news of the passing away reaches you till the time when the doors are shut literally, a plethora of feelings flash by. News of the passing away: You know quite a few in your family, friend & acquaintance who are perhaps suffering from some ailment or the other and going through some degree of recovery. Your mind scans this cache and in a wicked way, it seems to be relatively acceptable if a person was in this list. And if the person is outside of this 'list', that's when shock seems to set in. E.g. someone passing away in an accident is obviously a black swan moment. We seem to look for a cause-and-effect theory to reconcile the event. With the advent of all pervasive social media, it takes very little for news to go viral and disseminates the info virtually instantly. To the extent that folks seemingly auto-expect that you ...

There is something very philosophical about travelling by bus especially to work. Initial feelings of saving the pains of having to be alert processing multiple angles of traffic and pedestrians much like an AWACS. This is guaranteed to drain your batteries even before you reach half way to your destination. Depending on the distance to travel, you are bound to save substantial amounts of money. And considering the wet weather in  town (which, btw is NOT due to the copius tears shed due to the exit of Yeddy as he would like is too believe....we call it rain ), it's certainly a better option to commute. And when  you look around the fellow passengers, you see a sampling of the World around us that you probably chose to ignore or considered it being out of  your way. The casual and care free student fiddling furiously on his/her phone, quickly utilising the government quota of 100 sms for the day.... The daily wage worker who cannot afford  turning up late, traffic ja...

I had an experience of travelling by the Shatabdi express from Chennai back home after attending a family event. It has been several years since I travelled by this train. It's a kind of a mirror image of the transformation that India has gone through. The passengers now seem to be an eclectic mix of IT yuppies, doting ' mamis', spoilt brats, the oh-so-cool-to-travel-by-train posh types and the day in and out business men. The interiors are in itself a surprise with a  pleasant decor something one does not associate with our trains which are normally look like a welding lab project output from a local scrap dealer with some coconut mattresses thrown on top for comfort. The windows are large, two seats long with an optional drop-down sun shade. Seats are admittedly comfortable and the overhead luggage carriers at a comfortable height made of toughened glass and plastic. The meal drop down trays are adequate with a slightly clumsy water bottle holder. Overhead lighting was ...

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Saina-storms-into-top-five-of-world-badminton-rankings/H1-Article1-520466.aspx This is fantastic news all around. Quitely & surely, Saina has been sweating it out with the best in the World and making steady progress. First Indian to break into the top-10 and now the best ever, top-5. Am sure that this is not her Goal. Her goal is very likely to be a consistent #1. Compare with the hulla, We witnessed when India got the '#1' ranking in tests that has been promptly been overtaken by Australia. Lakhs of money a-la Mayawati flowed towards the Cricketers. And Saina probably makes a dignified & quiet entry & exit out of the Hyderabad Airport when She goes/comes back to/from the Super Series events. Why do we go on & on about Cricket ? I'm a Cricketer myself but find that the priorities of BCCI are not Cricket. After all, the website for BCCI is www.bcci.tv and it points to the Champions League site (an event that was dead ...